Vera Cruz

Don’t bother getting the new Blu-ray of 1954’s Vera Cruz.

Since it was the first movie to use SuperScope, an expanded 35mm process, that might explain why the digital transfer lacks the kind of definition and color that The Comancheros offers. Yet even earlier DVD editions, while less clear and a bit dirtier, have a richer color. And why doesn’t the Blu-ray offer a commentary track or extras?

Vera Cruz is an extraordinary picture. Ten years passed before Italian directors monkeyed with the same tools and themes that director Robert Aldrich brought to his post-Civil War Western. It’s a big movie, headlined by Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper, and features Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine and Jack Elam in secondary parts. But someone needs to give this movie The Comancheros bells-and-whistles treatment.

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